Elizabeth F. Fideler

Elizabeth F. Fideler, EdD is a founding member of the Sloan Research Network based at the Center on Aging & Work, Boston College. Earlier, after several years of classroom teaching, she earned a doctorate in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard University. She continued working for many years as an education researcher and senior manager in non-profit organizations. Her primary research and writing interests are: 1) biography of interesting subjects whose stories deserve to be told; 2) extended work life (mature adults choosing to continue working beyond conventional retirement age), and 3) intergenerational connections. Dr. Fideler’s newest biography—Blanche Ames Ames (1878–1969) and Oakes Ames (1874–1950): Cultivating That Mutual Ground—presents a 20th-century couple whose remarkable partnership advanced social justice and bridged art and science. In 2017 she published Margaret Pearmain Welch (1893–1984): Proper Bostonian, Activist, Pacifist, Reformer, and Preservationist. It presents a remarkably vital woman not well known in her day (or today), yet one who exemplified the social history of Bostonians whose time, place, and way of life have all but disappeared. Over many years, Dr. Fideler was an elected member of the Framingham Public Library’s board of trustees, serving as chair for three years. She also chaired the bi-annual “one book, one community” initiative, Framingham Reads Together. In her new community, she is an elected member of the condo association’s board of managers.